Schism
by Trinitas
Summary: This is the way it ends: Chase and Cameron's last conversation. Post-ep ficlet for "Teamwork," written for those who think the Chase/Cameron breakup should not have been focused on House.


"_I have a prophecy threatening to spill into words:_

_This growing certainty of Over…"_

—_Vienna Teng, "Between."_

**Schism**

They go home separately. Allison doesn't speak to him when she comes in; her expression is hard and closed. She goes into the bedroom (he doesn't think of it as _their_ bedroom now; he knows better) and shuts the door.

He twists the white-gold band on his ring finger in circles and listens to the unzipping of suitcases, the opening and shutting of drawers, the rustle of fabric. The sounds of ending.

Inanely, he thinks of the verse the priest read at their wedding, 1 Corinthians 13. There's a line about how love "keeps no record of wrongs" and "does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth." About how it's supposed to forgive.

Some things, though, are unforgivable.

It had never really been easy between them, communicating the right things at the right time. How, even once they'd both admitted being in a relationship, she had avoided him rather than talk; how evasion had become argument. And how he'd pulled away rather than trust her with what he'd done; gone to the call room, the confessional, the gym, anywhere but home. And that once, he'd gone and got plastered for the sake of escape, something he'd sworn to himself he'd never do, rather than just tell her—

And now he's sitting on the arm of the couch, hands shoved into his pockets, and she's packing.

Except it's not that he told her that's the problem, is it? It's that she'd rather believe it was a House-instilled God complex than his own choice; would rather have Chase run away than admit to herself he was responsible.

He'd run from Mum's death to seminary, from the loss of faith to med school, from a life in Rowan's shadow to New Jersey and the diagnostics fellowship. He's thirty-four now: tired of running and smart enough to know there are things it's impossible to run from.

And when Allison had made it clear her forgiveness came only because of a combination of denial and the decision that Chase felt enough shame, enough guilt…

He'd made the only choice he could live with. He couldn't have stood knowing that he'd contributed indirectly to the torture and death of two million innocents, and for all he'd tortured himself over having killed Dibala, he's also certain it was the _right_ thing to have done.

"You're leaving," he says matter-of-factly when she comes out of the bedroom with her bags. She's not, he notices, wearing either her wedding or engagement ring.

She swallows hard, nods. "Robert…what you did…I can't live with a man who could look me in the face, take responsibility for murder and tell me he'd do it again." Her eyes search his face. "Doesn't human life matter at all to you anymore?"

"Of course it does," he says. "The lives of the two million Sitibi men, women and children he'd have had brutally killed—"

"You can't know that!"

"'Whatever it takes to protect my country,'" he quotes, his voice clipped. "The newspapers called what he'd been doing a genocide. I looked it up—he'd been charged with crimes against humanity—"

"Making you his judge, jury and executioner?" She shakes her head. "Every life is—"

"Yeah. I heard that at confession," he says, narrowing his eyes. "And maybe to God, every human life is equally sacred. But I couldn't stand there and say the life of a mass murderer was worth more than the lives of _two million_ innocent people." Not pausing to let her answer, he says, "Humans judge some people as worth more than others. Like death row guy and that terminal cancer patient—"

"Don't you dare—"

"What? Point out that if you'd really thought their lives were worth the same, regardless of what they did, you wouldn't've had problems concentrating on the guy with a chance to live?"

"How can this even be an argument to you?" she demands. "We're not talking about logic; this is basic right and wrong! 'First, do no harm!'"

Except there hadn't been any way not to harm, only a way to minimize the damage. "There was no clear right answer," Chase says. "I made the best choice I could."

He could keep arguing, pose hypothetical questions, make it a moral debate. But what would be the point? None of that would convince her of anything, and he believes in picking his battles.

She makes a disgusted noise, crosses her arms over her chest. There's a long silence, then, "House ruined you. He made you think you could—"

"House didn't _make_ me do anything," Chase breaks in. "I like House. I respect him. But he had _nothing_ to do with my decision to fake that blood test." He meets her gaze. "If you're going to leave me over this, don't do it thinking I wasn't responsible."

He's not entirely sure why it matters: she'll leave either way. But it does.

"Fine, Chase: if that's what you want, you were responsible." Her voice is quiet; the anger has drained away. "And I'm sorry for you. Because you don't even see that what you did was wrong."

He's silent. There's nothing left to say. His last, indirect contact with her will be his signature on their divorce papers.

Finally she closes the distance between them, bends and hugs him while he sits, unmoving. Then she lets him go, takes her things and leaves.

He pulls his hands out of his pockets, takes off his wedding band. It goes into the back of his bedside drawer, where he won't have to see it or decide what to do with it for the foreseeable future.

He still has his freedom, his job, a chance to rebuild. Losing only his marriage over Dibala's murder was better than he deserved: whatever he'd told Allison—_Cameron_, he corrects himself—he regrets what he'd had to do. He'd taken no pleasure in ending a life.

And it takes hours to fall asleep with the empty side of the bed at his back.

**END.**


End file.
